Introduction
IAF and ISO have published a joint communiqué, highlighting the changes being made to a number of Management Systems standards, in the form of additional text highlighting the importance of Climate Change as a consideration within the organisational context for the management system.
As the joint communiqué explains, the changes were instigated in response to the London Declaration on Climate Action.
The purpose of this IAF communication, answering to the IAF Technical CommitteePaper raised in Montreal 2023, is to clarify the expectations for management systems Certified Organisations, Certification Bodies and Accreditation Bodies,noting that, as stated in the joint communication:
“The overall intent of the requirements for clauses 4.1 and 4.2 remain unchanged; these clauses already include the need for the organization to consider all internal and external issues that can
impact the e?ectiveness of their management system; these new inclusions are assuring that Climate Change is considered within the management system and that it is an external factor that is important enough for our community to require organizations to consider it now.”
Because of the above statement noting that the overall intent of the requirements remains unchanged, and with this change being treated as a clarification rather than a new requirement, it is considered that a full transition programme is not needed in this case, however, the guidance below should be considered.
Expectations on Certified Organisations
Certified organisations should ensure that they have considered Climate Change aspects and risks within the development, maintenance, and e?ectiveness of their own management system(s).
Climate Change, along with other issues, should be determined as relevant or not and if so, considered within an evaluation of risk, within the scope of the management systems standards. Where an organization operates more than one management system (for example Quality Management and Health and Safety Management), it should ensure that Climate Change, if determined to be relevant, is considered within the scope of each management system standard.
It is noted that some climate change aspects and risks may be of a general nature, independent of the applicable management system scope or the industry (e.g. when related to regulatory
compliance or operational adaptability and organizational resilience), while others will be specifically indexed to the requirements of the management system standards, to specific industries (e.g. energy production, agriculture and fisheries) and to characteristics of the organization (e.g. geographical location, nature of its supply-chain or workforce
Timing
The Amendments are expected to be published for the standards on 23 February 2024. As noted above, issues related to Climate Change a ecting the context of an organization’s management system(s) are typically already being considered by organizations.
Therefore, upon publication, certification bodies should include the new text in their auditing of the organization and its context. As with normal practice, where a certified organization cannot demonstrate that all external and internal issues that have been determined as relevant, including Climate Change, have been considered, a suitable finding should be raised.
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